Sign up to add this to your collection
|
Sign up to add this to your favorites
|
|
55%
Overall Rating
|
|
Ranked #4,791
...out of 20,698 movies
|
Sign up to check in!
|
Four young adult siblings try to fend for themselves after the mysterious death of their parents. But they harbor some dark secrets which include abducting and killing strangers, and feeding them to a mysterious 'thing' living in their cellar.
--IMDb
|
|
Review by Chad
Added: June 8, 2007
I'm finishing up the last of the 2006 After Dark Horrorfest entries, and I'm finding that the really good (Penny Dreadful) and the really awful (Wicked Little Things) seem to be lumped together right around this spot in the anthology. When I first read the description of The Hamiltons, I expected it to fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes; a "psycho family" movie is always entertaining in a cheesy sort of way, but they've been done to death and a writer would be hard-pressed to come up with something new for their film. However, what I've found after sitting through this was that the film was much, much more than just another serving of the same old stuff that we've seen time and time again.
The Hamiltons, for all outside appearances, are pretty much your typical family from down the street. David (Samuel Child) is the "leader" of the pack, having taken on this responsibility after their parents died, and his siblings all seem to be plain, ordinary people to the outside world. Frances (Cory Knauf) is a young teen attending high school, Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens) is a cute goth girl who happens to have a bit of an attitude, and Wendell (Joseph McKelheer) is... well, he's the bad apple of the bunch, having spent some time in jail and all, but doesn't every family have one of those? Indeed, the only thing that would make them seem more normal is if they had a white picket fence around their yard and an apple pie cooling on their windowsill - but what goes on behind closed doors is another thing altogether.
You see, this dysfunctional family enjoys kidnapping people and tying them up in their basement for reasons which will be made clear later in the film. I won't say why or what happens in this review, but suffice it to say that these people don't leave the basement alive once they go in. There's also a bit of a mystery to be found about someone or something named Lenny which is kept locked in a small room, and as it turns out, Lenny is quite the vicious little... something. That's really all that can be said about the movie without spoiling it, but trust me when I say that this is not another one of those "torture porn" movies even though it may seem like it.
What did I enjoy most about this film? It'd actually be easier to ask what I disliked about it, because then, I could answer with a simple reply of "nothing" and be done with it. The movie takes its time with the revelations and character development, and although this fact may prevent the idiots who want to see nothing but tits and gore from enjoying it, I thought that it added a whole hell of a lot to a story which easily could have been a steaming pile of shit in the hands of a less capable director. My biggest compliment to the film is the fact that it took a genre which I normally despise (family drama), put it into the world of horror, injected yet another genre that I absolutely dread, and came across as a bit of a reinvention of said genres while being an absolute blast to watch. To specify what that second genre was would be a spoiler, but it's one that makes most horror fans groan - and it's done up in such a great fashion in this film that I couldn't believe that I was enjoying it.
My only true complaint about the film was the character played by Cory Knauf: I felt that he was too whiny and too much of a pushover to really come across as the underdog hero that I assume the filmmakers were going for. Again, this isn't a complaint about Mr. Knauf himself, just the character that he played - the actual actor did the best that he could with the role and made it much more watchable than it could have been. The rest of the cast is just as good, and although they do have their moments where the audience may want to turn against them due to their on screen actions, you can't help but get sucked in due to their charm and charisma.
The Hamiltons is definitely a highly recommended film from yours truly, and it's actually my favorite of the After Dark Horrorfest as of this writing - and there's only two films that I've yet to see, with neither of them sounding like they will top this one. 9/10.
|
|
#1:
bluemeanie
- added June 8, 2007 at 10:02am
Another one of my favorites from After Dark. This
premise was very interesting and executed very
affectively. The Butcher Brothers obviously have
a place in the genre, I just hope they don't
choose to go the Eli Roth route. "The Hamiltons"
was quite nice, and I hate to admit it -- but a
lot of the appeal for me was in the fact that it
contained a truckload of cute guys. And that
means something in a horror film -- to me, at
least. 7.5/10.
|
|
#2:
grain of sand
- added June 8, 2007 at 8:23pm
eh, I wasn't a fan of this, I think the family
drama portions were done well, but when they
'partake' in the violence its not done very well
and that bothered me.
liked the insane
brother though.
4.5/10
|
|
#3:
ThunderStruck5a
- added June 8, 2007 at 8:44pm
the movie was good with all the developement and
what have you but i think the title 'After Dark
Horrorfest' caused it to be a big disappoint to me
because i didnt find anything horror about it.
maybe i missed something.
|
|
#4:
Christopher
- added July 14, 2007 at 1:58pm
Another fantastic addition to the terrible
collection of the After Dark series. Someone's
about to die? Best believe it's going to fade to
black and show absolutely no murders. Uh ohs,
these two brothers don't like each other either, I
hope they don't fight! It was like watching a
vampire version of Dawson's Creek. "We're not
little kids anymore! Mom and dad aren't here
anymore! You're not going to push us around
anymore! You clean this mess up while we go incest
it up!" -Sister and Brother. Then that "monster"
locked inside the box. I figured that was going to
be the highlight of the movie. Some crazy ass
mutant flesh eater. This family should have
changed their name to the Disappointments.
|
|
#5:
missbexxie
- added September 5, 2009 at 2:03pm
Agree with Bluemeanie that there are some cute
guys in this! I really enjoyed this offering
actually, and found it to be one of the better
releases from this ADHF series, as it had a nice
twist on the old vampire theme. An 8/10 from me.
|
|
Rate Movie? 
